Supporting a culture of giving
Another way our people give back to our communities and demonstrate our culture of giving is through charitable donations. In FY11, our annual Giving Campaign resulted in nearly $9.1 million in donations from our people. This campaign is also an opportunity for our people to demonstrate pride in the PwC Charitable Foundation while we continue to support a long legacy of giving to the United Way.
FY12 Giving Campaign enhancements
In early FY12, we rolled out a national internal contributions website to make it easier for our people to donate via payroll, credit cards, or other means, to the charity of their choice during any time of the year. Through the FY12 Giving Campaign, our people raised over $9.5 million including over $1.2 million to the PwC Charitable Foundation and $8.3 million to the United Way, their partner agencies, and other organizations.
Total charitable donations from the firm and our people
$
Donated volunteer hours (on company time)1
Hours
Total charitable donations from the PwC Charitable Foundation2
$
Individual partner and staff donations through the firm
$
| FY2009 | FY2010 | FY2011 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total charitable donations from the firm and our people | $28,711,698 | $35,647,113 | $39,763,373 |
| Donated volunteer hours (on company time)1 | 113,838 | 107,910 | 80,327 |
| Total charitable donations from the PwC Charitable Foundation2 | $1,146,137 | $1,725,531 | $2,092,719 |
| Individual partner and staff donations through the firm | $9,500,000 | $9,000,000 | $9,101,278 |
1 Total donated volunteer hours for FY09 and FY10 have been restated for fiscal year comparability purposes.
2 The Foundation reports on a different fiscal year from PwC. These numbers reflect fiscal year reporting from October 1 through September 30.
Currently, we’re striving to enhance our firm-wide level of giving, both in terms of the overall level of participation of our people and in terms of the total time and dollars we donate. We are looking at our people’s work cycles and our emphasis on youth education to refocus our efforts so that they better align with our staff availability and with students’ schedules.
Matching Gift Program for Colleges and Universities
We also support giving through our Matching Gift Program for Colleges and Universities, which is designed to enhance and encourage a spirit of financial responsibility among our people toward the firm’s college recruiting sources. The program doubles the donations of individuals giving eligible gifts to these schools. The gifts, and the corresponding PwC match, provide support in many areas, including curriculum development, faculty research, student leadership development, and diversity initiatives – all areas that will better prepare the students of today for a future in our profession.
In FY11, donations from our people for our Matching Gift Program, combined with the PwC contribution, totaled nearly $6.2 million, up from $5.6 million in FY10.
Currently, we're striving to enhance our firm-wide level of giving, both in terms of the overall level of participation of our people and in terms of the total time and dollars we donate. We are looking at our people's work cycles and our emphasis on youth education to refocus our efforts so that they better align with our staff availability and with students' schedules.
Summer of Community Service
One of our firm-wide initiatives that support our firm’s culture of service and the development of our people’s civic responsibility is our Summer of Community Service (SOCS) program. What began in 2005 as a month-long volunteer program has expanded to a three-month effort with an increasing focus on youth education year after year. Our 2011 efforts again showed that, by leveraging the power of our 33,000 partners and staff, we can collectively make a difference for our communities by helping to motivate, educate, and develop our next generation of leaders. The impact of the more than 45,000 hours volunteered by our people during the 2011 SOCS resulted in the organization of more than 250 projects. These projects raised more than $130,000 and benefited nearly 101,000 children – a 44% increase in the number of children impacted from the prior year.
For this most recently completed SOCS effort we worked with DonorsChoose.org, a non-profit organization that provides a simple, accountable, and personal way for individuals to connect and donate to classrooms in need. PwC made $5 gift cards available to all US partners and staff so they could direct funds to public school projects of their choice. These $5 gift cards increased to $25 for those PwC individuals who volunteered for a SOCS project. These donations resulted in nearly 4,000 classroom projects being funded, impacting approximately 113,755 children. Since we began working with DonorsChoose.org in FY11, PwC has helped to fund more than 8,000 classroom projects, impacting over 650,000 students.
Project Make [it] count
Through our Project Make [it] count program, the firm provided 20 staff members in 2011 with $500 each in seed money to develop and implement their own service projects. Activities have included projects as varied as teaching financial lessons to youth, providing meals to people in need, and taking underprivileged children to the aquarium for the day. Since this program launched in 2009, the firm has funded more than 60 projects. By design, many of these funded projects grow exponentially when brought to life by the passion of our people. For example, one past Project Make [it] count participant used the seed money to fund a special needs swing at her local playground and built momentum to raise $100,000 to revamp the entire playground. See the video above for more project examples.
Recent awards
Our community and employee engagement programs have earned recognition from a number of groups, including:
2011
- PR News Awards, Employee Volunteer Program (finalist)
2010
- Business Civic Leadership Center, U.S. Community Service Award (won)
- PR News Awards, Employee Volunteer Program (finalist) and Events: CSR/Green Focus (finalist)
- Points of Light, Corporate Engagement Award of Excellence (finalist)
- Just Means Social Innovation Award, HR: Best Employee Engagement Strategy (finalist)
![Project Make [it] count](/us/en/about-us/corporate-responsibility/corporate-responsibility-report-2011/assets/image/community/giving-video-poster.jpg)